Taking a short break

Came back to hometown, ate some home cooked food, read a lot of old National Geographic magazines and slept for so long.

One thing about National Geographic magazine is that, you will never get bored of it. There is something new to learn everyday, even though we are reading the past issues. For example, recently I went to Sulaymaniah in Iraq, I did not know much about them before I went there. Even now, I still don’t know much about that place. I thought it is just like part of Iraq, but they are not. They don’t consider themselves to be part of Iraq. I saw an article in NGS dated back in 2002, they covered an article on Kurdistan. It allows me to learn so many things about them. Last time probably when I read it, I thought, gee, what’s this place? Why would I care? But after I have been there, it seems to be so much interesting reading what others have written about that place.

PC crashed :(

My HDD decided to quit on me after 2 years and 9 months of continuous operation. I wish it could have lasted longer.

Hopefully I have some spare ones ready for replacement.

Hardware comes cheap nowadays, it's the information inside that matters.

Would need to try to recover all the old pictures inside before it go busted completely.

Going back to hometown this weekend, after traveling outside the country for so long, it is good to go for a local trip once in a while.

Bread!

There are so many bread shop around nowadays.

I used to be a big fan of 'The Loaf', even though it is pricey, some of their bread are really good. Until, one day, when I tried to microwave the bread in the morning. After taking it out of the microwave and put it on a paper plate, after 5 minutes, we can see the paper plate is having plenty of spot where the oil seep through. Yuck, I don't want to know what type of oil is that, but the thought of eating so much oil is making me cringe. I will stop visiting this shop from now on.

Then there is also 'Bread Talk', 'Bread Story' which is quite similar. I don't like their breads, it's like commercial tasteless bread which is not that affordable and does not taste good either.

There is also the local bakery XQ which used to be located near to where I was staying, their bread is a bit more economical, but some of their breads, they keep it for more than a day, so the taste is a bit off. Sometimes when I just run out of choices, it is either I'll go for XQ or Gardenia.

Gardenia bread is the default choice when nothing is available, it's always either Apricot or Chocs, I'm sure if I stack up all the Gardenia date tags I have here, it can reach at least 10 cm in height.

Recently we discovered a new bakery, 'Tea Bread' in Viva Mall. And now I'm addicted to it. I wish I'm staying nearer so I can go there everyday. 3 for 2 promotion is still on-going, like one hour or 2 hours before they close the business everyday, it is really affordable. I just like their bread so much.

Cabs in KSA

In Saudi Arabia, you get cab drivers coming from all nationalities, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, etc. Most of them do not speak English.. Unless we are well arm in Arabic, we will find little conversation between us and them.

There are some really mean cab drivers who refused to use the meters and even threaten to U-Turn back to a further place if we do not want to pay him the fees he wants. In the end, we pay him what he demanded and oh well, everything ends well.

And also there was one cab driver with really serious Parkinson disease, we caught him in the middle of having his lunch, but he still agreed to send us to our destination. When he drives, his hand were shaking so much. I don't know how long he can hold on to the steering and also the gear lever. His response is much slower, during acceleration. Hopefully during braking, his response is pretty fast. Or else I won't be here anymore. Probably the cab driver should retire or something, pretty dangerous to drive with this kind of illness.

During one of my previous trip, there was one cab driver, while driving me to the airport, he just stopped by the roadside, and points towards his pelvic area and mumbling something in Arabic. My Arabic level is not up to that level yet, so he just gave up and walk to somewhere further on an open land and treat that as his personal toilet, with just a piece of paper in front of him. After like 20 minutes, he came back and told me that he is unfit to drive me to the airport anymore. I thought I'm going to miss the flight for sure. But hopefully, there's another cab passing by and I managed to catch the flight, even though he stopped me at the wrong terminal and I have to walk all the way from one terminal to another. Phew, what a walk that was, with less than 30 minutes to close of check-in counter.

Seems like I still have plenty of trips to KSA.. Possibly more adventure awaits.

Travelling.. is a very tiring thing

Contrary to what most people think, it is a very tiring thing to travel every now and then. Just one week ago I came back from Iraq, and tomorrow I’ll be leaving to Saudi Arabic (KSA) again for business trip.

Adapting to the time difference, adapting to the cultural difference, adapting to the food and adjusting my appetite, adapting to the weather difference, and adapting to the working life there.

After doing all that, then it’s time to return to M’sia again, and we will need to adapt ourselves all over again. But coming back here seems to be an easier process compare to going there.

Sigh.

Sulaymaniah

This is my first visit to Iraq for the first time in my life, I’m somewhat excited and a bit nervous because there has been not much information about that place, not on the Internet, not on anywhere else.

There is just like 6 or 7 airlines which fly to Sulaymaniah and the majors ones are Royal Jordanian and Turkish. Since Royal Jordanian could not meet the dates which I’m travelling, I have to stick to Turkish.

Upon arrival in Suly airport, there was a big crowd queuing up for immigration, the speed of processing visa and stamp is fairly fast, I think within 60 minutes, the immigration hall is all cleared up. By the time I got through it, my luggage is only one left on the conveyor belt.

Paid 20k IQD for taxi to the hotel, and upon arrival to the hotel, the hotel is locked and there is no one inside! Oh well. Hopefully our customer sent a driver to the hotel and he managed to wake the hotel personnel up. Slept for 3 hours and I’m on my way to the customer office.

The customer office is pretty far from the city, and it’s on a hill. So we get to see pretty nice scenery from there. Somewhere while ascending up the hill, we managed to get a glimpse of the city.

Twilight before the night falls.

Sunset in a city surrounded by mountains.

Mini Stonehenge in the customer’s office compound.

 

The whole city is surrounded by mountains like this. It is way very cold up there, I think it is about 10C to 20C.

After the war back in the nineties, this place is still in the state of rebuilding. People here are generally friendly.

I managed to catch the bus here while one of the staff brought me to the bazaar. We don’t need to pay the driver as soon as you go up the bus, what we do is that, we pass the money to the person sitting right in front, he will add his own fare and pass it onwards, until it reaches the driver.

If we do it this way in our country, I think the moment you pass the money to the person in front, the person in front will just put it in his pocket and forget about it.

Spiderman

Spiderman should not only be able to swing around or shooting webs, his body proportions should be like the spider as well, small body, long legs. Then only he is the ‘true’ spider! And he must be able to eat insects!

Bangkok

Went to BKK around last week for summer vacation.

Even though we are just next to Thailand, it seems that the weather there is so much hotter than us. I always thought that the weather there should be much cooler as they are further north.

The people in Bangkok is really friendly. Even though most of them have limited vocabulary of English, they will try their best to understand what we have to say.

Taking cabs around Bangkok is one of the most affordable method of travelling. I have been to many different countries, the cab rate in Bangkok is one of the cheapest around. No problem going to places where BTS and Metro does not cover.

With the amount of shopping malls over there, I guess the primary activity of tourist over there is probably shopping. Jatujak (Chatuchak) is really packed, while it’s not that big. To cover every shop there would probably require some advance navigational ability.

Won’t mind going back  there again in the future, but probably armed with a new pair of shoes.

Disillusioned

After working in the same organization for more than 5 years, somehow my expectations has deviated from what I have been looking for when I first started to work.

Things that could please me in the past can no longer stir up anything much inside me, maybe a few seconds of excitement sometimes.

Probably I just need a short break.

Transformers 3

That is one long Transformers movie. I think my bladder is going to burst upon reaching the end of the movie.

I wonder what will happen if the planet Cybertron has successfully been merged into Earth? Collision? That means even Cybertron will be destroyed as well. What’s the point of bringing it here then?

And I can’t believe so many Decepticons can’t destroy just a handful of Autobots. Gee.

The Sound of Music

When Captain Von Trapp and Frau Maria kissed for the first time yesterday on the stage, there were someone yelling out “Ewwwwww”, making the hall burst into laughter.

3 hours show in the Plenary Hall is a torture. I figured that the seats in the cinemas is even better than those we have in KL Convention Center.

Well, I’m still wondering they do lip-sync for the songs and conversation, or they are really singing it? Somehow the sound does not appear to be coming off the live stage there.

‘Super 8’ movie review

The movie is about … kids trying to shoot a movie for a competition and also invasion of the alien – at least some kind of creature we don’t see on earth.

Spoilers alert!

Didn’t know that a truck can be used to stop a train churning at full speed. Train is at least 10 times heavier than the pick up truck, furthermore it is moving at high speed, which the momentum will make it even more destructive. The pickup truck would have been smashed into pieces.

The explosive occurred so close to the boy after the train crashed, but the boy did not get any injuries, not even a bit.

After they curfew off the town, when the kids get caught and about to be transported back in the military bus, when the bus went under attack by the creature, somehow when the main antagonist (apart from the creature) shoots at the creature, seems like the creature did not even bleed a wee bit. Wow, is it bullet proof?

And it’s a happy ending for everyone.

Except for the poor sheriff.

Luggage marked with X

Recently when I flew to Bangalore, my luggage only came out of the conveyor belt after quite a while. I though it’s just a glitch in their system, and I didn’t notice anything until I reached the hotel.

When I was about the unpack the luggage, I saw the top part is marked with chalk, a big white ‘X’ and a even bigger ‘X’ at the bottom.

I googled around about this, seems like quite a lot of people raised this question before. It seems like this often happens to country which has very high crime rate, where the luggage handlers will mark the luggage which has valuable item inside. Either for thief or for the destination customs office to check the bag and find items to be taxed. I checked the contents of my luggage, nothing is missing, well, nothing has been added as well.

Then someone also mentioned that, the ‘X’ could also mean that the luggage has gone through additional screening process. This seems to be a much better possibility, but do they really need to use chalk in this case? Using chalk only makes it more difficult to rub it off. Can’t they use some kind of sticker or some kind of tag that ties to the handle, in this case?

I’m still wondering what’s the chalk mark for. And I wonders who marked the ‘X’ there, could it be the handlers in LCCT or the handlers in BIAL?

Twilight Samurai

Recently I got hold of this old 2002 movie due to the high ratings of this movie at rotten tomatoes.

Wow.

First time I can see the village life of Japan..

The movie is actually a story told by an elderly women, about her father when she was just a young child. How her father tries to balance between work and family, and following clan orders and also her dad’s love life.

The title of the movie is named after her father, as her father was trained as a samurai, and always return home early after work, right before the sun sets, therefore he’s called ‘twilight’.

Oh well. Should just watch it and you’ll know.

Blogspot roll back?

Seriously, it is okay to roll back to an earlier version when the whole system has crashed. But there should be at least a notification?

I see posts missing, comments missing, and everyone else is reporting the same thing too.

Mr. Blogspot, mind telling us what actually went wrong?

Who is the most important in an organization?

If you are the boss, who do you think that perform the most important task in your organization?

If you think that the one who brings in the most money, sales guy is the most important, then probably the sales guy career in your company will be very short, because not every year in 30 years of his career, every year will be a profit making year. As the organization expands, the cost of course will increase, if one day, the sales profit cannot cover the cost, is he still that important? If 5 years down the road and the company is still making losses, what would you do?

If you think that the one who can give orders is the most important, then what happens if there is no one else for him to give orders too? Nobody will be  doing the job and in the end, even the person giving orders will  be leaving the company. Being able to give orders and being able to mix well with staff, is never a good combination. Sooner or later, the person giving orders will be isolated.

To me, I would think that the person doing those tasks where nobody else want to do, is the most important of all. Because when there is a job too easy, people will just ignore it because it’s not a challenge, when there is a job too tedious, people will just avoid it because it takes a long time to be solved, when there is a job that is ridiculous and totally impossible to do, there is no one else but him.

The bottom of the pyramid, the proletariat.

Persepolis

This little French animated movie got pretty high rating in the reviews section of Rotten Tomatoes.

The story revolves around Marjanne, which was born in Iran but migrated to Paris for some time, until when her grandmother asked her to come back.

It’s about going back from the free-flowing life in Paris back to the restrictive life back in Iran, where the Shah of Iran is slowly consolidating his power after taking over the rules…

It gave us a little insight back into the history of Iran, at the same time, deliver it in a quite humourous way. Not sure if the story is right, but hey, it’s just fun.

From time to time the movie will give some really meaningful phrases.. “Your duty is to forgive, not to make judgment”, which most of us tend to forget.

Even though the movie is in French, no doubt we need subtitles to understand everything, the animation is quite well depicted so we can understand more or less by just watching it.

And it snows in Tehran!

Again!

Car tyre somehow got punctured while stuck in a small traffic congestion yesterday. Went to the tyre shop and checked, it’s not caused by any nails or sharp objects, but the sidewall of the tyre just burst like that!

Come to think of it, this is now the 3rd time the car got a flat since I changed car last year, approximate 3 times in a year.

First time is when I was about the leave for work, early in the morning, I found that my front tyre is flat. Hopefully then I have a second car to drive to work, therefore I can afford to leave my car there until I’m free to fix it. But she offered a big help by sending it to the workshop when I was at work.

Second time is when we were coming back from a movie in Bukit Bintang, somehow the tyre just got flat by itself and we only found that out after we have driven all the way to Pandan Jaya. Hopefully it is still Saturday so we went to a different workshop this time, which is nearer. They could not find any air leakage from the tyre for the first few times, suggesting that it could be some prankster purposely flatten the tyre when I was not around. After a few more retries, they managed to find out a small needle like hole leaking out bubbles of air when dipped into the small pool of water. Patched the hole and we were good to go again.

Between 2nd time and 3rd time, there was once when I drove through a deep pothole too fast, and the tyre wall is ruptured. But it’s not broken yet, just swollen, so I went to the mechanic and changed a tyre then.

Phew, still have 7 more months to endure before this year is over.

Travelling for work is not fun!

There are people who have the misconception of travelling is fun. Travelling for vacation is fun, no doubt. But travelling for work? I’ll skip.

Before I die #1

There are so many places I want to see with my own eyes, before I close my eyes for the last and final time. Before natural disasters causing these places to vanish, before human mistakes causing it to disappear.

Lets start with Indonesia, our very own neighbour.

Java is world most populous island, where the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta is sitting on. Jakarta city is on the west side of Java island, somewhere in the middle of the island, we have Yogyakarta city.

Nearby to Yogyakarta city, there is an ancient Hindu temple complex.

Image taken from http://www.harekrsna.com

Prambanan, one of the most beautiful Hindu temple in the world.

Next, towards to northwest of Yogyakarta city, we have a temple complex dedicated to the Buddhist.

 

 

 

Image take from http://www.atmann.net

The temple of Borobudur, built in the 9th century as well. It was built 300 years before Angkor Wat construction started in Cambodia.

 

 

Well, so far my work only allows me to reach the outskirt of Jakarta. I wish that one day, when I have the ability to go to these places, it won’t be too late.

Work is about working happily

Company won’t have feelings, they won’t feel it even if we work very hard for them. There is no point working too hard for them.  Allocate time for ourselves, spending some time with loved ones and family, spending some time enjoying our life, these are all important aspect of balancing between working life and normal life.

Working because of high pay, can never make us happy. The higher the pay, the higher the expectations as well. We can earn 10 times more than industry average, that would also mean we are part of the high risk personnel to be sacked during economic downturn, and also, the company will expect nothing but the best from us.

Sigh.

Air Asia X Premium

Due to really short notice from customer, all the other airlines has been fully booked, even normal Air Asia seats are fully booked, that leaves us no choice but to fork out approx USD 2k for the flight.

Air Asia nowadays does not encourage us to do check in at the counter anymore. They have prepared the kiosk for us to do check in at LCCT, and also made web check-in available.

The funny things with these premium tickets is that, it is not possible to check in at the kiosk and also online at all. We reached the airport like 1 hour before the departing time, and phew, we managed to check in at the counter. There is a separate counter for the premium ticket but we did not know that, so we went to the normal counter and check in.

Everything else is standard. They advertised something like we can board the plane any time we want, but the truth it, the gate leading to the tarmac outside is always closed until everyone can board. So there is no such thing as board anytime we want. By the time the gate is open, there is be a mad dash to the plane. I don’t know what’s the rush with these people.

We took the wrong entrance to the plane, as the seat is way in front, we took the back entrance and slowly squeezed through the crowd. Well, lesson learnt. Always ask before going into the plane.

Inside the plane….

 

Plenty of legroom. I can put my legs straight and still I can’t reach the wall in front.

Plenty of cabin space for your carry-on. This time we did not check in any luggage, brought everything on board. Made good use of all the available space.

The complicated control panel of the seat. I haven’t been exploring all these buttons. I just reclined the seat and slept for the whole journey.

Independent armrest for each side of the passenger, so nobody will fight with you for the armrest.

There is not much other perks here, only thing is that we get a flat bed seat. Usually we don’t find flat bed in business class in normal airlines, only in first class. And first class usually will cost an arm.

They throw in a couple of bottles of water for free, which is usually retailed for MYR 5 per bottle, I think, used to bought of lot of those before Air Asia launched their Air Asia X branding.

Food served on Air Asia is still way better than the food I get on other airlines. I wonder why other airlines can’t opt for this kind of food? Gee.

Now the next thing I would like to request from Air Asia is that they start to fly to Middle East, a couple of countries, like Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Jordan, Bahrain, Egypt. Then it will be so much better.

Airports

There was once when we were taking Thai Airways from LHR (Heathrow) to KUL (KLIA), transiting through BKK, the transit time is really short, less than 1 hour. Even our luggage is tagged with big yellow sign, ‘Hot Transfer’. I am not entirely sure if BKK Airport is really that big. From one end to another, we were already walking really fast, no time to even stop and take a breath, and we reached the gate just in time. The feeling is like you just need to walk and walk, there is no end in sight. The signboard forever pointing that in front is the gate number. Well, plenty of shopping opportunities in BKK but we did not have time for that. Anyway, we will be going there again later this year.

In my recent trip, DEL Airport (Indira Gandhi) has just gone through a major renovation last year, I think. We were in Terminal 3, it’s the new one I guess. The journey from the immigration to the gateway is like walking around half a stadium. One conveyor walkway after another, and furthermore, there are like places without conveyor, where we have to really walk. One thing nice about this Terminal 3 is that they have free Wifi! Where we can just request for a code using our mobile, any country free of charge.

While I was in RUH (King Khaled), the taxi driver dropped me at the wrong terminal. There is no transfer service from one terminal and another, well, I had to walk myself from one terminal to another, around 500m, hauling my luggage bag all along. When I reached the other terminal, the queue is really long at the scanning part before the check-in. Phew, hopefully I still managed to check-in. The best thing about RUH is not when leaving KSA, it is about reaching KSA. During the immigration phase when we arrived, don’t bother about the label on top of the immigration counters. Just go to any counters apart from the one on the left most, usually the one with the longest queue. The immigration officer will always ask us to go the left most queue, we can just ignore him. It will take at least 2 hours to clear the immigration if we go for the left most queue.

There are more to go, but I need to take rest first.

Senjyu

Went there last weekend.

I have never known there is a place called e-Curve until that day. Never even heard of it. I thought that place is only about Ikea, Ikano and the Curve.

The food is quite alright, kind of like fusion Japanese cuisine.

If you don't know what to pick, just pick all the chef recommendation items on the menu!

The price is a bit on the steeper side, good for pampering oneself like, once a year?

Hopefully she has a discount coupon so we get the save up a bit.

I wonder how do they clean up the place, because the seating 'hole' in the middle has no place for them to like sweep out the dust or some other stuff.

Taxi services

Lets recall some not so nice taxi experience which I had in the past few years of travelling.

Traffic in Bangalore is one of the worst in the world. There are simply too many cars to fit in those narrow street and the roads are so messy, potholes everywhere and those drivers just blew their car horn anytime they want.

There is once when I tried to depart to the Bengaluru airport after a meeting with customers, got into the taxi and the guy took a really weird way to the airport. It’s like running through the backlanes of houses. At one point, he stopped at a gas station and went for a pee. He took so long to pee which I thought I gonna miss the flight. After about 45 min, he came back, hopefully. I still made it in time for the flight back.

Another time when I was in Riyadh, when I was departing to the airport as well, this guy just went off to poo in a deserted housing area. He was speaking Arabic which I don’t understand, so he just pointed to his bottom frantically trying to make me understand, then I knew. Then he took like 30 minutes to sit there in the middle of the empty lot of houses and poo, I tried not to look at him but I couldn’t help myself. After that, I thought he was done, then he just walked back to the car, and open my side of the car door, and ask me to get out. He was not fetching me to the airport anymore.

Then I had to flag down another taxi to bring me there. Phew, hopefully there are plenty of taxis there in that city.

Cabin crew

After flying so many different airlines, one of the most pleasant experience would be Emirates and also Qatar Air.

There was once when I refused to eat anything on board the Qatar Air flight, one of the flight attendant noticed that and asked me why I didn’t eat. I just told him I have no appetite. And he gave me a pack of cute biscuit with ice lemon tea.

And then there’s one time when I was not feeling so well and my stomach was about to turn inside out, I walked to the lavatory and found it occupied, then while I was waiting, the flight attendant asked me why I look so pale, so I told her that I feel like vomiting, she made a cup of fresh lemon tea for me. Warm one does feel good on board a long flight. Then I felt fine after it and slept away.

Doha airport is not that big and it’s made of glass, almost the whole terminal building. During daytime, it’s so bright when we are sitting near the window, we can just wear shades when inside the airport.

And on the Emirates flight, I guess they are the only airlines allow us to use cellphone as soon as they landed, while still taxiing on the runway. And they have small water dispenser nearby the lavatory, where we can get ourselves a cup of water instead of asking for the flight attendant. And they have unlimited supply of cup noodles for serving! I’m a big fan of cup noodle.

And also Dubai airport rocks! It is quite big where you can find almost everything there. And there are lots of charging station for us to charge the laptops, phones, etc. Make sure you keep an eye on that. Lots of strangers around though. I thought they have some kind of sleepbox there, but I couldn’t find it last time when I was there.

Nice ones including China Airlines and also Gulf Air.

China Airlines is like, they remember your seating preference, when I checked in last time, I always asked for front seats or at least seats at the front. After that, they remember my choice and when I check it, they will give me seats at the front without asking, well there are sometimes when I forgot to ask. And China Airlines is like so affordable, so much cheaper than Air Asia. Well done to them!

Gulf Air is also nice because they use nice aircraft. I just dislike B777 because of the 3-4-3 seating. It is like so crammed. Airbus A330, A340 is much better.

Oman Air, which I took only once, they are quite nice. Gave me meal vouchers when I was in Muscat airport when I was there for 3 hours transit.

I remember there’s one time on board the Austrian Air, they served Sushi for breakfast, with a big piece of cold hard salmon. I tried to chew on it, already feel like vomiting. I have to skip my meal during that flight.

Etihad, it is so-so because the ground crew refused to admit that their flight was late even though they already knew about it. This is during the time of the volcanic ash in Iceland. And also Abu Dhabi airport is really small and nothing much to shop. They need to renovate it or something.

We waited in Abu Dhabi for 8 hours and they refused to give us anything, not even a meal voucher.

MAS, our national carrier, the food is not bad sometimes, but it is depending on luck. And the seating arrangement is one of the worst! There’s once I checked in with my girlfriend together, and they gave us separated seats even when there are plenty of seats available, we checked in 2 hours before!

And MAS flight attendants are mostly arrogant. I know they are earning much more than I do, but that doesn’t mean they can be arrogant!

Trip got extended

Trip has been extended somehow. I won’t be back until 5 days later.

Got a bit of nosebleed the other day, felt some itchiness in the nose, rub it a bit, then saw some blood on my hands. I didn’t care about it because it’s cold outside, so I just breathed extra hard to make the blood cools down and clot, and it stopped bleeding.

Over here, there seem to be a specialization of job per country.

Taxi drivers are usually from Pakistan

Waiters, cooks, are usually from Philippines.

Maids are usually from Indonesia.

Counter staff at supermarkets are usually fellow middle east people.

I saw a Japanese working in Al-Shawaya manning the payment counter the other day, he can speak Arabic really well. I wonder how many years he has spent here. Probably since he was born.

The only good thing here is that they have 4 seasons in a year and also petrol is really cheap here. So many GMC pickup trucks, I even saw a Hummer on the road the other day.

Porsches, Ferraris  are just so common though. Guess it is way cheaper here compare to our beloved M’sia.

Han room - Gardens Mall

The food there is awesome! And the design is not that bad. Although we were seated in a really strange way.

We ordered the course meal for 2 person, the items on the menu seems very little and I thought it will never be enough. But, they cheated. They stuffed us full with rice and also dessert.

Speaking of the rice, yum yum it’s one of the best fried rice ever!

The only thing I have to complain is that, there are too many mirrors around and the lightings is quite dim. Never ever put a big mirror facing a door, as we are approaching from the side, we won’t know whether left side or right side is the door.

Well, I walked into the mirror when I went into the washroom. Hit on the mirror with my head first. Ouch.

When I came out of the washroom, I thought the opposite washroom is also coming out, so I waited for them to come out first, in the end, it’s just my own reflection.

Departing to the airport later. Won’t be updating again until 5 days later.

First trip on the new year~

Shall be going to Riyadh, KSA.

I know, it's not the most desirable place to be in, and it's a terrible long flight there, 7 ~ 8 hours... But it's for work!

Traffic over there is not that bad at all, I guess I could even rent a car and roam around if my company allows. Might be way cheaper than taking a cab. But I will need a GPS for sure. Drivers there are unusually aggressive, while I'm no native Arabic speaker, it's impossible to ask around.

Internet is really slow over there, probably due to the government proxy server sorting out traffic.

Second trip most likely will be going to good old India. The country which has conquered us before.

Hopefully 3rd trip will be after Chinese New Year. It is way too packed to squeeze everything here in less than 1 month's time!

Summons & National Service

There is no use for summons if they only charge certain amount of money. As rich people will never be bothered by that and poor people will be struggling to pay.

Instead of making them pay using their money, why not make them pay using their effort, like community service? i.e. one week of rubbish collecting at certain area, cutting the grass in all the schools in the area, serve in the disabled home or elderly home for one month, etc etc.

Then there will be no difference between the rich and poor.

Another thing is that, why our national service does not include rubbish collecting and sewerage cleaning? As we are not going to be a military superpower or we are not under threat by any of our neighbours, I don’t know if it is that wise to let these young people handle the guns and all that.

Why not we dispatch the whole camp of national service trainees to go collect all the rubbish around the city.. At least that will teach them not to simply throw rubbish anymore and we will get a cleaner city in the long run!

Easier to say than to be done

This happens very common at work. Others can just say about this and that, like we did wrong in the first place, we shouldn’t have said that, shouldn’t have done that, etc etc. They might seem to be logical enough to be right there, they might be older and more experienced than us, they might be sitting in a higher position than us, but the main issue is, they are not in our shoes at that time!

How do they know about the exact situation we were facing then?

Customers are seeing us directly, not them. If there is something wrong with the system, customers are pressuring us, not them. If we couldn’t fix something for the customer in time, the customers are scolding us, not them. If we couldn’t satisfy the customer expectations, we are getting the blame from customers, not them.

When there is a problem, please try to find a way to fix it as soon as possible instead of pointing fingers at others. Things won’t fix itself even if lots of pointers has been used.

By blaming it on somebody, we don’t only make that somebody unhappy, we can also cause them to have lower productivity, causing negative effect on the outcome, and also losing focus at work.

Gee.

Mistakes.. Argh!

While on the way from Ampang to Pandan yesterday, I made a mistake at the traffic light junction, nearly cause an accident on the 1st of January. What a start to a new year then. Definitely it won't be my year anymore.

Hopefully they reacted fast enough to avoid any mishap. Thanks to both the motorcyclist and the car driver.

If only you are connected to the Internet, I would like to say sorry to both of you.

Thank god I'm still alive right now.